


binshot

by interstellarcadence



Category: Psych
Genre: M/M, Shawn Takes a Shot in the Dark, Sorry Not Sorry, also abigail WHOMST?, dont read if blood or gunshot wounds freak you out, i felt her and shawn's relationship was forced and i didn't like it, so it's not here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-12 22:15:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16004402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interstellarcadence/pseuds/interstellarcadence
Summary: shawn had passed out before the ambulance arrived. henry held him the entire time, stone-faced and silent. but now no one was watching. it was just his son, sleeping, haloed by fluorescent lights, and the steady beating of the monitor. the rhythmic beeping seems to fill in the hollow spaces of the room. henry steps closer.---everyone's reactions post 'shawn takes a shot in the dark'. each chapter is a different character's pov, in time sequential order. also abigail and shawn never happened, and gus and shawn are pining over each other because that's basically the whole show.





	1. henry

\--10:17 AM (6 hours after the shot)--

the icu’s visiting hours ended forty minutes ago. henry spencer doesn’t care. he pushes past nursing students who haven’t been lectured on a father’s desperation, eyes trained on room 112. shawn’s a fighter. henry knows this because he raised his son to be one. so why is he this anxious?

finally, an attending doctor rushes over to him, half-jogging through a sterile hallway. “sir, you can’t go in there.”

“tough shit. my son was shot.” henry’s voice does not waver. it does not break under emotion. he will not allow it to.

“i know this must be very hard for you, but he just got out of surgery. right now your son needs rest,” the doctor says. henry looks to the nametag. doctor philbin. usually knowing these things brings henry some sense of comfort or control. he still feels just as powerless.

“i thought my son was dead. now look the other way, or this won’t be pretty, philbin.”

and with that, doctor philbin swallows and walks towards the students. henry stares at the door. his palm reaches the handle, but makes no movement as it rests there. he takes a breath. he turns it, and pushes forward.

the first thing he notices are the bruises. a necklace of purples and yellows from where shawn’s captor had desperately kept him silent. next the cut on his cheek from the impact on the windshield. and then his right arm, in a sling now, resting near the bullet hole. his left is marked by an iv of type o blood. he’d lost so much. henry had stared for too long at the initial pool in the gravel. and the stains in that car’s trunk. that damned car shawn should never have allowed himself to get pushed into.

henry wants to blame this on shawn. on the recklessness of confronting a criminal by himself, or his refusal to officially join the force. but he can’t. he knows it’s all the times he drilled shawn on the number of hats in a room, or taught him to catch a liar in their web that lead to this. to the entry and exit wounds that will never leave. to the rehabilitation therapy that will surely follow in order to regain his range of motion.

shawn had passed out before the ambulance arrived. henry held him the entire time, stone-faced and silent. but now no one was watching. it was just his son, sleeping, haloed by fluorescent lights, and the steady heartbeat copied by the monitor. the rhythmic beeping seems to fill in the hollow spaces of the room. henry steps closer.

even with the morphine being pushed through his veins, there are still tears nestled in shawn’s eyelashes. henry holds shawn’s hand. his hatred of hospitals grows every time he watches his son almost die in one. he sits down in the uncomfortable plastic chair with outdated 80s upholstery.

“dad?”

henry’s retrospection is replaced with shawn’s voice. weak, slurred, almost asleep somehow. the anesthesia is only slowly releasing its grip.

“yeah shawn?” henry asks.

“i’m sorry.” any sense of snarkiness in his voice is gone. but henry didn’t expect any. he knew the morphine had a way of melting shawn’s usual smartassery, of stripping away his sole coping mechanism. there was no humor here. just a death narrowly avoided pressing down on their shoulders.

“it’s okay, son,” henry says. there is nothing comforting about his expression. only worry and hypotheticals of an imagined funeral.

“did you call mom?” shawn asks.

“she’s flying in from rhode island. she’ll be here around midnight.”

“that’s a long way,” shawn says.

“yeah,” henry says. he won’t blame shawn for not contributing much to a conversation right now. it’s a wonder he’s even talking. it’s really a wonder he’s alive.

“where’s gus?” shawn asks.

“in the waiting room,” henry says. “it’s not visiting hours yet.”

shawn doesn’t say anything. he’s barely holding his head up, and henry can’t tell if the pain or the morphine is to blame. he attempts to use his good arm to push himself into sitting. he winces in pain and falls back onto the pillow.

“it’s okay shawn. rest,” henry says. shawn gives a barely noticeable nod. his eyes close. henry doesn’t let go of shawn’s hand.


	2. gus

\--11:47 AM (8 hours after the shot)--

gus has had some time to process all of this. he no longer feels that same sinking emotion when thinking about the facts of the last eight hours. no longer imagines the bullet any time his eyes wander towards gauze peeking from shawn’s hospital gown. should he feel guilty?

when he got denied entry into the school for gifted children, he cried on the porch for seemingly hours. he kept reading the forged rejection letter over and over again, searching for loophole or explanation. his mother had sat down next to him, rubbed his back, and said sometimes he just cared too much. and sometimes, gus wishes he could turn his empathy off.

especially when it came to shawn. there’s a burden in really knowing shawn, beyond the superficial version of himself he gives to everyone else. gus finds his thoughts drifting to high school. or, more accurately, the week before they graduated, when shawn got just a bit too drunk at julie baker’s party, and of course called gus to pick him up.

it was always something about that car ride. shawn, shaggy hair pressed against the window. muttering about love and moving away and stupid colleges. shawn said something about never having the nerve to ask someone out when it really counts. and then, this is the clearest image from that night, shawn took a breath and turned to face him.

he looked so desperate. he opened his lips as if to say one thing, but closed them again. he shook his head, flashed a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, thanked gus for the ride home, and used the trashcan to crawl into his second-story window. now, in the hospital room, all gus is thinking about is what shawn was trying to say.

“coffee?” juliet asks, offering a styrofoam cup. gus loses his train of thought, and absent-mindedly accepts anything warm to hold.

“thanks,” gus says.

“are you alright?” juliet asks, ever the detective.

“i’m fine,” gus replies. “i was just thinking about shawn and i in high school.”

juliet just nods in response. henry has long since dozed off in one of those uncomfortable, mostly-plastic chairs. lassiter slipped away a while ago to finish the incident report. which leaves juliet and gus as the watchful guardians of shawn, still sleeping as his body attempts to heal.

“i never thought this would happen,” gus says to no one in particular. “shawn’s always been so invincible. i mean, how many times before this had he talked his way out of getting hurt?” he takes a sip of coffee so he’ll stop thinking out loud. he notices shawn stirring a bit. he watches as shawn takes his good arm to rub the sleep out of his eyes, and yawns.

“gooood morning, santa barbara!” shawn laughs, eyes still groggy as he looks around the room. “god, what time is it?”

“11:53, which is way too early for you to be awake,” juliet replies. “you need rest.”

“come on jules, don’t be old man jenkins,” shawn says. “i feel fine!”

“shawn, need i remind you that you just got shot?”  gus asks. he watches as shawn seems to shrink a little, as if he has yet to come to terms with his own reality. “juliet is right.”

“her favorite beastie boys album is the mix-up, gus! how can you possibly trust her opinion on this?” shawn asks. gus notices henry shifting in his chair, eyes now wide open. he wonders how long he’s been awake.

“maybe because she’s a detective who had to go through training for this sort of thing,” gus replies. it doesn’t take years between them for gus to see through shawn’s humor. he’s scared. and gus shouldn’t feel guilty for that, because it was a completely idiotic move to go to a criminal’s hideout without help. without his best friend.

“why are you being such a hard-ass about this?” shawn asks, any remnant of a smile gone. “i don’t know if you noticed, but i just got shot, so excuse me for trying to bring a little humor into this situation.”

“shawn, that’s enough,” henry says. “gus and juliet are right. you need rest.”

“great, now everyone’s against me!” shawn says, voice betraying agitation. gus can’t figure out what has gotten into him to make shawn this irritable. besides the obvious, of course.

“gus has been your best friend since diapers. he’s always been there for you, and he’s been sitting in this stuffy hospital room for two hours, and you think you have any right to be pissy at him? grow up, shawn,” henry says. “detectives o’hara and lassiter put their lives on the line to save you. you need to learn respect.”

shawn sighs, rolls his eyes, and gus can see that glimmer of a high school rebel. the best friend that gus almost fell in-- he stops himself. he can’t think like that anymore. maybe it used to be acceptable, when they were both teenagers, still confused and figuring things out. but they’re adults, out in the real world. gus can’t afford to… be like  _that._  he’s always prepared himself for a wife, and 2.5 kids, and a minivan. not to be the subject of gossip or leers.

“look, gus, i’m sorry,” shawn finally says.  gus almost finds himself wondering if shawn really is psychic. “i get it. you’re just looking out for me.”

“you’ve been through a lot. it’s okay,” gus says. he takes another sip of coffee. of course it’s bitter and awful and makes him almost gag, but he’s too wrapped up in his thoughts to care. in his fantasies, this is the part where he blurts it out. where he admits he’s always thought of shawn as more than a best friend, and  _of course_  he knows what shawn was going to say to him that night, but he’s always been too scared. or maybe he’s always been a little too patient.

but he can’t. gus can’t.

and so when his boss calls, asking why he hasn’t started his route yet, gus apologizes and leaves the room. he doesn’t take a vacation day, or tell his boss to suck it, or give shawn a real explanation. he just leaves, still thinking of his mother telling him sometimes it’s okay to let go. sometimes that’s the only way you can survive. by getting up off the porch, dusting off your shoulder, and walking away from whatever regret is eating you alive.


	3. juliet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! sorry this one is a bit short, i've not been the most confident in my writing lately and so i kinda edited it to death. :p
> 
> also i listened to this while writing, the lyrics don't have anything to do with the story or scene or whatever, but it rather fits the mood i think?  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak7hqJYk6Yk

\--10:02 PM (two days after the shot)--

juliet is always focused. this does not change when she’s behind the wheel. she watches as the lamplights idly mark distance passed, scanning over her and shawn. the palm trees lining the road are drowned in yellowed light. nature overcome by artifice. she glances over to her passenger.

shawn is usually very good at getting hospital bracelets off. it’s a little harder when the captive wrist is in a sling. there’s a special twist to it, a way of touching the thumb to the pinky finger just so. it’s an art, really. at least, according to shawn.

“i have a knife in the glove compartment,” juliet says. “you could’ve just asked for it.”

“come on, where’s the fun in that jules?” shawn asks, a slight giddiness to his voice. “this takes skill! a certain flair! panashay!”

“do you mean panache?” juliet asks. she does not smile.

“i’ve heard it both ways,” shawn says. juliet’s almost mad at him. more accurately, how quickly he seems to be bouncing back from this. he should’ve died. as she watched the sunrise through the window of his vacant apartment, she had made her peace with never finding him. or, maybe he’d be wrapped in a tarp, dumped on the side of the road like lassiter theorized. either way he wasn’t supposed to be laughing in her car after being discharged from the hospital.

it was by sheer chance that she was the one to drive him home. he had been medically cleared rather late in the night, around the time juliet had decided to drop by. shawn obviously wouldn’t be driving his motorcycle any time soon, and henry was twenty minutes away. it just made sense to take him home. and juliet is nothing if not logical.

“got it!” shawn exclaims. he holds the wristband like a five year old holds their first lost tooth. the fleeting lamplight washes over his smile .

“good for you, shawn,” juliet says.

“okay jules, i’ll bite, why are you being such a grumpy pants?”

“i’m not.”

“yeah, and val kilmer would still look hot in leather pants,” shawn says. juliet thinks for a minute, and then decides she has more things to worry about than val kilmer’s thigh muscle to booty ratio.

“shawn, just-- just don’t talk. for like two minutes. please?” juliet asks. shawn turns to look outside. really, juliet is amazed he isn’t asleep.

the main difference between california and florida is the humidity. in florida, the heat surrounds you. it presses into you, like when you swim too far down in the water and your ears pop. it’s the pressure. in california, it’s just hot. of course it burns into your skin, but it’s all on the surface. get into some shade, or buy one of those handheld fans at disneyland, and you’re fine.

but juliet never lost than sense of weight. the first time she was shot, she felt the humidity wrench the bullet further into her side. her whole life surrounded her and pressed into her skin. she had a brother she was leaving behind. a mother with a heart too big to make sense of the world’s evils. friends, exes, the college boyfriend she owed a train station visit to. shawn has reasons to live too. why isn’t he acting like he just almost lost all that?

“it’s been two minutes, on the dot,” shawn says. sometimes he’s so much of a smartass, juliet wonders how he has such an extensive support network. and then she feels bad because even smartasses should have at least one person to love them.

“fine, shawn. yes, i’m upset, okay? you’re just taking this really well, and i’m having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact you’re this okay with almost dying.”

shawn should have some witty one-liner. a wry comment, probably pertaining to 80s pop culture. but he doesn’t. which is why he’s indescribably grateful when the headlights of juliet’s car illuminate the garage door of his childhood home.

“we can talk about this tomorrow. okay, jules?” shawn asks.

“okay,” juliet says.

and so shawn opens up the car door and pretends that he didn’t almost lose his balance stepping out, and juliet waves at him as he walks up to the porch. she watches as henry hugs shawn, minding his shoulder of course, and juliet feels jealousy for a healthy paternal relationship. and then she pops in one of those moody 90s albums she keeps in her car for nights like this, and pulls out of the driveway.


End file.
